Babies May Be Able to Recognize Faces in the Womb, Study Suggests

A new and complicated study published in Current Biology tells us something pretty cool about developing babies in the third trimester — they can react to things they see and they may already have a preference for face-like shapes.

WHAT THE STUDY LOOKED AT

Scientists have known for years that newborn babies have a preference for shapes that look kind of like faces. The assumption has always been that this preference begins after birth when babies are, well, surrounded by smiling faces welcoming them to the world.

In fact, until recently, scientists didn’t think babies in utero could respond to any visual stimuli. They thought of the womb as a very dark place where no one could see anything and figured babies' vision didn’t really develop until they got out into the much brighter world around us. But studies on mice suggested that light gets through into the uterus and that this light is important for preparing the eyes to see after birth.

So, researchers in the U.K. decided to test the vision and preferences of human babies. They did it by projecting light onto the stomachs of pregnant women starting on whichever side the baby's head was facing and moving slowly across to the other side. While they did this, a sonogram technician watched to see whether the baby moved its head. The researchers used patterns made of three dots in the shape of a triangle. Sometimes the triangle pattern was right side up (with the point at the top) and sometimes it was upside down. The upside-down or top-heavy pattern was designed to mimic the shape of a face.

WHAT THE STUDY FOUND

The researchers tested this on 39 babies and found that more preferred the face-shaped pattern. They would turn toward this pattern when it was shown and away from the opposite pattern.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

Before your partner, your mom and neighbor across the street take turns showing their faces to your pregnant belly, however, you should know that this research doesn’t show that babies can see actual faces. In fact, the only thing that can get through to your baby is light from the red end of the spectrum. It's also important to note that the study authors are discouraging pregnant women from shining bright lights onto their bellies (just in case you were considering replicating the experiment yourself).

Still, these finding show some pretty cool things — the uterus may be a cozy place to hang out but it is not always dark, vision develops earlier than we think and babies respond to what they see. The results also prove that it’s possible to examine fetal reactions to what they see so expect more studies like this in the future.